


need a little love, got a little love to share

by inconocible



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Bye I Murdered Myself With This, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ezra Bridger Needs a Hug, F/M, Gen, Healing is Hard Work, Hurt Ezra Bridger, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Let Kanan Jarrus Hug His Kid, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Episode: s03e03 The Holocrons of Fate, Post-episode: s03e01 Steps Into Shadow, Star Wars Rebels: Steps Into Shadow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 19:52:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15713967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inconocible/pseuds/inconocible
Summary: “Focus. Catch your breath,” Kanan says, a little gentler, and Ezra nods more, trying to come to terms with the fact that he’s not falling and suffocating and dying, that he’s on the Ghost, that Kanan’s real, that he’s really here, holding him.Or: Kanan comforts in Ezra in two coda moments to Steps into Shadow and The Holocrons of Fate.





	need a little love, got a little love to share

**Author's Note:**

> yeah i'm gonna, i'm gonna, i'm gonna come through  
> you'll never be alone, [i'll be there for you](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GkZPT5we6Y)

Reklam is burning and hurtling toward the ground, and the wind is whipping at Ezra’s face, stinging his eyes, cutting his ears. Ezra really can’t help it that he’s crying, okay? He’s crying and he’s clinging to the burning station for his life and it’s just the wind, it’s the way it’s hurting his eyes, his face. That’s all, that’s it.

Okay, if he’s being honest with himself, maybe it’s also the adrenaline thrumming through him, maybe it’s the regret, the guilt. The self-hatred. Maybe it’s that’s he’s kriffing _terrified_.

Mostly, mostly, though, it’s the wind, making him cry. And he’s crying like he hasn’t since Malachor, he’s _sobbing_ , and he can barely see through his tears, and he just can’t help it. It’s the wind slicing into his lungs and the back of his throat as he breathes, and he can’t catch his breath, and he realizes belatedly that he’s _panicking_ , that he’s been panicking since five minutes ago, since he realized he was about to die, and, desperately, with all his heart, ripped open his bond with Kanan in the Force, begging for help.

He doesn’t believe it when he feels, practically hears, Kanan, in their bond, saying, “Ezra, I’m here.” It’s his mind playing tricks, he thinks, it’s the Dark Side consuming him in the moment of his death, because Kanan isn’t here yet. Ezra’s still trying to hold out hope, still begging for Kanan in his mind, desperate and terrified, and he’s still crying, and he can’t kriffing _breathe_. Something dark and black in his mind insists that Kanan’s not coming, that Ezra’s going to die, and Ezra’s tears fall faster, harder.

But Kanan does come, the _Ghost_ swooping unbelievably down next to the station.

“Ezra, I’m right here!” Kanan’s calling out, but Kanan doesn’t even look real to Ezra right now, and Ezra is half-convinced he’s hallucinating this, that it’s just his mind being totally kriffing paralyzed and confused by his fear, by his utter, base state of panic.

“Kanan?” Ezra asks. “I can’t reach you!” he says, “it’s too far!” and in their bond he pushes his confusion: Is this even _real_?

“It’s okay,” Kanan tells him, “I’ve got you,” and Ezra’s scared, he’s so scared, and he’s still not totally convinced that this is really happening. “Go ahead,” Kanan’s saying, “let _go_ ,” and Ezra doesn’t know what to do anymore, so he just gives in. He lets go of the burning station, and he tries to reach for the Force to control his fall, but he can’t control any of it, any of it at all. All he knows when Kanan’s hand finally closes around his wrist is that he hasn’t felt anything this _steady_ in months.

Kanan jerks him inside the ship, and Ezra’s vaguely aware of how much it hurts his shoulder, his outstretched arm, but the airlock slams closed behind them and they’re both falling face-flat onto the floor. “Got him!” Kanan calls out to Hera, over the comm.

Ezra pushes up off the floor, lands on his knees, and his chest is still heaving, and he still can’t catch his breath. The _Ghost_ feels real and solid under his knees, but he still can’t imagine why, or how, Kanan could have come for him, can’t comprehend how that just happened. There are knives in his lungs and he can feel the tears streaking down his cheeks, but he doesn’t know how to stop it, can’t ground himself. The _Ghost_ lurches as it pulls away from the burning station, and Ezra reaches for his face with his shaking hands, trying to wipe his tears away, and he’s still shaking, he’s shaking so much.

Kanan has pushed himself off of the floor onto his knees, too, and he turns, reaches a hand out toward Ezra.

“Hey, kiddo,” Kanan sighs, his hand landing heavily on Ezra’s shoulder, and Ezra is furiously wiping at his face, and he can’t figure out why he can’t stop crying, why he’s still gasping quick, shallow, panicked breaths in and out, why he still feels like he’s gonna suffocate and die, like this isn’t real.

Ezra covers his face with his hands, trying to calm the kriff down, but he’s shaking, shaking and sobbing into his palms, and Kanan’s hand leaves his shoulder, closes around his wrist again.

“ _Hey_ ,” Kanan says again, his tone turning serious. “Ezra --” he starts, but Ezra feels a frustrated and emotional exclamation tear itself from his throat to interrupt whatever Kanan has to say, something along the lines of _ugh_ , but so much more that, so much deeper.

“I know! I know,” Ezra’s gasping, hasty, defensive, quick, muffled by his own hands. “I kriffed everything up, okay, I know.” Ezra grinds the heels of his hands under his eyes until he sees stars behind his eyelids, but that doesn’t stop the flow of his tears. Kanan hasn’t let go of his wrist, and Ezra feels himself getting pulled in closer to Kanan as he moves his hands over his face.

Kanan sighs. “Ezra,” he says, soft, steady, measured, the opposite of everything Ezra’s feeling right now. “I got you, come on,” he says, tightening his grip on Ezra’s wrist, tugging at him.

Even as Ezra’s shaking body is folding into Kanan’s, even as his sweaty, tear-stained face hits Kanan’s collarbone, he’s saying, “I can’t do this.”

Kanan lets go of Ezra’s wrist, wraps his arm around Ezra’s shoulders, cups the back of Ezra’s head in his hand. “I can’t do this right now, Kanan,” Ezra argues, but his voice breaks on Kanan’s name, because he’s sobbing still, gasping for his breath.

“Okay, that’s fine,” Kanan says, but he doesn’t let go of Ezra’s shoulders and head. He reaches with his other hand for Ezra’s face, cups Ezra’s chin in his palm, runs his thumb over Ezra’s cheekbone. “Shh,” Kanan’s saying. “Calm down so we can go help Hera,” he says, his voice all business, but his hands unbelievably gentle on Ezra’s face. “We’ll do this later. I’m here, okay?”

Ezra nods, his head moving against Kanan’s chest, gulping for air, sniffling furiously against his runny nose, willing his tears to stop. One of Ezra’s trembling hands is tucked between their bodies, and the other moves on its own volition, curls around the collar of Kanan’s shirt, hanging on.

“Focus. Catch your breath,” Kanan says, a little gentler, and Ezra nods more, trying to come to terms with the fact that he’s not falling and suffocating and dying, that he’s on the _Ghost_ , that Kanan’s real, that he’s really here, holding him. That Kanan heard him, that Kanan really came back. “Come on, kiddo, focus,” Kanan whispers, gentler still. “ _Breathe._ I’ve got you.”

“Okay,” Ezra says, dragging painful breaths in through his nose, trying to let them out through his mouth a little more slowly. “Okay, okay.”

He tries to focus in earnest, focus on the let-down of the adrenaline from his bloodstream, focus on the feeling of his bond with Kanan that’s roared back to life in the Force in the past ten minutes, that somehow re-opened fully during his moments of panic. He focuses on the care and love that are steadily flowing there between them, on the fact that he can’t find any anger or blame coming from Kanan’s side at all. Ezra knows he has to be leeching so much guilt and self-hatred out from his side of the bond, and he can’t stop it completely, any more than he can stop his panicked muscles from shaking, but he tries, he really tries to get himself under control, and he feels Kanan, there with him in the Force, steadying him, bolstering him, grounding him.

It can’t be longer than two minutes, but it feels like a lifetime that they kneel there in the airlock, Ezra trying to breathe again, his face pressed into Kanan’s chest, his hand on Kanan’s collar, Kanan holding him.

Finally, Kanan leans back a little, cups Ezra’s jaw in both his hands at arms’-length. “Okay, you ready?” he asks.

Ezra sighs. “I guess,” he says, because his face is dry and he’s not crying anymore. His chest hurts -- and his shoulder, the arm that Kanan grabbed him by, that hurts even more -- but it doesn’t feel like there’s knives in his lungs anymore, he feels like he can breathe like a human being again. He lets go of Kanan’s collar, scrubs his hand over his face.

“Don’t worry, we’ll talk about it later,” Kanan says, sweeping both his hands back over Ezra’s face, over his ears, placing them on his shoulders, squeezing.

“Great,” Ezra snarks, feeling grounded by both of Kanan’s hands on his shoulders, trying to find his old self, not even really knowing which old self he ought to be right now. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

Kanan gets to his feet, offers Ezra a hand, pulls him up. “Yeah, I’m sure you are,” Kanan snarks back, a smile quirking at his mouth, something Ezra hasn’t seen in so long.

As they head to the cockpit, slide into their familiar seats, watch as the _Ghost_ breaks back out into the space battle, Ezra lets a part of his mind stay with Kanan’s, stay immersed in their bond, something more calm and sure between them than anything else he’s felt in months. Even though part of him is still terrified that they’ll never be okay again, another part of him realizes, with a sudden, intense clarity, that they’re going to be able to fix this, if they both commit to trying.

*

Two days later, Ezra’s falling again, but it’s strange, and it’s wrong, and his senses are all mixed up. He’s falling and it feels like an odd combination of sensations, of the knife-sharp wind from Reklam and the burning bright push of energy from the holocrons. Everything hurts, and he can’t figure out what’s going on, can’t find the answers to his questions, can’t steady himself, and he feels the panic from Reklam washing back up over him, diffusing down into him. He reaches out in the Force, searching for his bond with Kanan, but it’s like it was never there, no one on the other end.

“Kanan!” he calls, but there’s no answer, just like there wasn’t on Reklam, even though he can see, through the blinding light, the shadow of Kanan’s concerned face, looming over him, just outside his reach. “Kanan!” Ezra yells again, reaching out, trying to grab Kanan’s hand, and he’s still falling, but suddenly he’s falling faster, and then he’s landing on something, something hard and cold and abrupt.

It’s the floor of the _Ghost,_ and it jars him awake, the physical pain in his body that radiates from his right shoulder a strangely welcome grounding point against the wild, mixed-up memories from his dream.

“Ow,” Ezra groans. He’s landed hard on his right side, on his already-sore shoulder, and he rolls onto his back, staring up at the ceiling of his room, listening to Zeb snore, trying to figure out what the kriff _that_ was about. “Ouch,” he moans, dragging the vowel sound out, kind of hoping for Zeb to wake up. He doesn’t, though, just snuffles in his sleep and flips over, his back turned to Ezra.

Ezra sighs, sits up, rolls his injured shoulder around gingerly. “Ugh,” he softly groans, poking at it with the fingers of his left hand. “Karabast.”

His head hurts, too, and everything feels sore, off, wrong, his shoulder a bright point against the dull pain thudding through his whole body. Ezra sighs again, gets slowly and carefully to his bare feet, adjusting his t-shirt where it rode up when he fell off his bunk. He walks to the galley, opens the freezer, grabs one of the reusable ice packs, takes it over to the dejarik table. It’s the middle of the night, and everything around him is still, quiet, washed in the low light of the _Ghost_ ’s night cycle, muted. Ezra glances around for Chopper, but even he seems to be resting right now, nowhere to be seen.

Ezra slumps down to sit on one of the stools in front of the table, his back rounding out as he leans his elbows on the table. He reaches across his chest with the ice pack in his left hand, presses it to his aching, swollen right shoulder, and his head droops down, his brow bone leaning heavily against the heel of his right hand, his chin pressed into his left wrist, everything feeling _wrong._

Ezra isn’t sure what hurts more, his heart or his head or his shoulder, and he closes his eyes, drifting away in the guilt that’s overtaking him, and before he knows it his eyes are welling up with tears for the second time in two days. What is _wrong_ with him? He shakes his head against his hand, grits his teeth, but that just makes his head hurt more, and he swallows around his tight throat, sniffles a little, tears breaking through his closed eyelids, sticking to his eyelashes. He knows how to cry silently, did it all the time back when he was first alone, and he gives in to his body, bows his head deeper, presses his nose into his left wrist, letting himself take quiet, shallow breaths in, letting himself cry.

Ezra has no idea how much time passes like that, bent into himself on the stool, leaning heavily on the table, quietly crying, hating everything about the past six months, about himself, the _Ghost_ silent around him.

He startles when the _Ghost_ suddenly isn’t silent around him anymore, when someone’s bedroom door is sliding open down the hall.

“...needs me,” Kanan’s voice, quiet, rough, drifts down the hall, and Ezra realizes it’s Hera’s bedroom door that just opened. “Get some rest,” Kanan says, and Ezra can hear Kanan’s bare feet padding down the hall, walking into the galley, but Ezra can’t move, can’t look up at him.

Kanan perches on the end of the booth seat, and Ezra can feel him, can feel not just his physical proximity but the way Kanan’s turning his attention to their bond, curling his Force signature around Ezra’s. Kanan doesn’t say anything for a long moment, just sits there with him, something soothing in the Force passing from him to Ezra, incredibly difficult for Ezra to accept.

“Your shoulder still bothering you?” Kanan finally says, breaking the silence between them, leaning forward, taking the ice pack from Ezra. It’s melted, anyway, Ezra realizes as he hands it over, soft and warm now, not helping anything anymore. Ezra curls his now-empty left hand around the top of his sore right shoulder, but he doesn’t move his head, pressing his damp face into the top of his left arm still, sniffling more, trying to stop crying, listening as Kanan gets up, puts the ice pack back in the freezer, sits back down at the end of the booth, their knees brushing together.

“Yeah,” Ezra manages, and it comes out more whimpery than he means it to, trembly and weak, and he knows he’s given himself away, can almost feel Kanan raising one eyebrow at him. “It really hurts.”

“Hm,” Kanan hums thoughtfully, and he leans forward, rests one hand on Ezra’s sore shoulder, applying gentle pressure with his fingertips, searching Ezra in the Force. “It’s inflamed, but it’s not dislocated, and I don’t think you tore anything,” Kanan eventually says. “It’ll be fine. You just need to let it heal, be easy on it for a few days.”

“Yeah,” Ezra concurs. Kanan’s hand slides down his back, and Ezra finally lifts his head, wipes the lingering tears from his face, glances over at Kanan, who could be his older twin right now, dressed for bed just like Ezra is, in his bare feet and pajama pants and tattered white t-shirt, his mask off. Ezra folds his hands, laces his fingers together, rests his chin on top of them, his elbows still on the table, and he frowns.

“I didn’t mean to --” he starts, but Kanan shakes his head, dismissing Ezra’s apology before he can get it out, rubbing his hand over Ezra’s back.

“It’s fine,” Kanan says. “She needs to get some sleep, anyway.”

Ezra wants to ask, wants to apologize, wants to know that Hera and Kanan are gonna be okay, but he doesn’t know how, still thinks it’s all his fault, so he just sighs.

“So do you,” Ezra says.

“Yeah,” Kanan agrees, but he doesn’t make any motions toward his own room, doesn’t take his hand off Ezra’s back. “You gonna go back to bed, too?” he asks, and Ezra hesitates on his answer, bites his lip, shakes his head.

“I --” he starts, and he doesn’t want to tell Kanan, but at the same time he wants to tell him everything, can’t carry it by himself anymore. Kanan tilts his head at him curiously, and Ezra huffs a sigh out. “I was having a bad dream,” Ezra admits in a small voice, and Kanan hums that thoughtful sound in the back of his throat again.

“It’s been a rough couple days,” Kanan tells him, and there’s a nudge from Kanan in their bond, a nudge of acceptance and love and _tell me_ , and Ezra sighs again.

“I was falling again,” Ezra says, closing his eyes, wanting to let it all out, but, at the same time, not wanting to remember. “I was falling, and falling, and --” and he can feel himself getting upset again, his throat and chest tightening again -- “and you weren’t there, and.” He sighs again. “I fell out of bed,” he finishes, trying to push away the phantom memory of his panic, trying not to get upset again.

“Mm,” Kanan hums a third time, still rubbing Ezra’s back. “That why your shoulder hurts?”

“I guess,” Ezra says, nodding. “I mean, it was hurting after Yarma, and then today, after --” The memory of regaining his consciousness to the sound of Kanan’s concerned voice, cradled in Kanan’s arms, his whole body singing in pain from the way he hit the floor, his head aching with the knowledge and the light of the holocrons, comes back to Ezra, and he feels something in his bond with Kanan that tells him Kanan’s thinking about that, too.

Kanan’s hand drifts up Ezra’s back to the base of his neck, his fingers brushing over the soft, short hairs there, and Kanan squeezes, releasing some of the tension that Ezra didn’t even realize he was carrying there. “Yeah,” Kanan says. “I guess you got a little beat up today.”

Ezra sighs. “I haven’t fallen out of bed in forever,” he grumbles. “And I _don’t_ feel like falling again tonight.”

“You wanna come sleep with me?” Kanan offers after only the briefest moment’s pause, and it surprises Ezra, makes his heart jump into his throat. “I’ll take the top, so you don’t have to worry about falling,” Kanan adds.

“I --” Ezra starts, wanting so badly to say yes, but there’s a wave of deep and strong self-hatred that washes over him, something dark and insidious curling through his mind, telling him that Kanan has to be lying if he doesn’t blame Ezra for everything that’s happened, that he can’t possibly still love him as much as he’s acting like he does. Their talk in the cave today helped, but it was just the first step against six months of Ezra’s heartache, and now, late, hurting, tired, he’s still questioning himself, still wondering if Kanan’s declaration of forgiveness didn’t run as true as it seemed, still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Hey,” Kanan says softly, a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth, and Ezra feels how hard Kanan’s pushing back against the negative feelings Ezra’s released into their bond in the Force. “None of that,” Kanan says, getting to his feet, his arm around Ezra’s shoulders, now, his hand squeezing gently at Ezra’s upper arm. “Come on.”

Ezra stands up, too, and he’s pliable in his grief and his pain, and it feels just like it did when he was falling from Reklam, like he’s lost all control. Kanan’s arm is heavy over Ezra’s shoulders, and Ezra finds himself suddenly blinded by the tears that well up in his eyes. He stumbles a little, his bare toes catching on the cool metal of the floor of the ship, and Kanan pulls him closer, gets him walking. Ezra leans his face over into Kanan’s shoulder as they walk down the hall, and a harsh sob slips out of him before he can stop it.

“Kanan,” Ezra croaks out. He isn’t sure how they managed to get to Kanan’s room in one piece, both of them blinded in different ways, only knows that Kanan’s guiding him down to sit on the edge of the bottom bunk, sitting down next to him, wrapping both his arms around him.

“I know, I’ve got you,” Kanan says, patting Ezra’s back, and Ezra clings to him, fisting his hands in Kanan’s t-shirt, closing his eyes, his Force signature curling around Kanan’s, his body shaking. “Shh,” Kanan soothes, rocking him. “I’m here.”

Ezra doesn’t know how long he cries this time, loses himself in the feeling of Kanan’s arms around him. But he finally huffs out a sigh, exclaims, “Why can’t I stop _crying_?” and Kanan laughs a little, lets go, wipes Ezra’s tears from his face, just like he did on the floor of the airlock two days ago. Ezra finally feels like he’s empty, like everything, his guilt and his grief and his tears, are done, at least for now, handed over to Kanan for safe-keeping, just like the holocrons.

“Because you’re exhausted,” Kanan says. He pushes gently at Ezra. “Go to sleep, kiddo,” Kanan says.

Ezra lays down, curls onto his side, careful of his sore shoulder, and he presses the side of his face into Kanan’s pillow. Kanan’s actually been sleeping here for the past six months, and Ezra doesn’t want to think about why Kanan hasn’t been staying with Hera like he always used to, but the pillow smells good, somehow, comforting, the unique scent of Kanan’s soap and the leather oil he uses on his shoulder pauldron mixed in with a lingering sting of old bacta. Ezra sighs, relaxes a little as Kanan pulls the quilt up over Ezra’s shoulders, tucks it in around him, rubbing his back as he does.

“I’m right here if you need me, okay?” he says. Ezra nods, and he expects Kanan to get up, to climb up to the top bunk, but Kanan lingers, his hand warm on Ezra’s back, and he leans down, presses his lips to Ezra’s temple. “I’m right here,” he whispers into Ezra’s skin, kissing his forehead, and something sleepy and soothing is drifting to Ezra in the Force, and Kanan leans back, but he doesn’t get up.

Ezra drifts off, just like that, Kanan sitting on the edge of the bunk, Kanan’s hand on his back, Kanan’s signature cradling his in their bond, that promise of _here, I’m right here,_ curling through and around his mind.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm rewatching rebels and getting extremely murdered by my feelings and no one is shocked.
> 
> i liveblogged the first scene of this last night at 2 in the morning while super deep in my feelings, but this morning i really needed to write the second scene, and so i decided it should live here instead of just [on tumblr.](https://inconocible.tumblr.com/)


End file.
